Me: so I'll see you later to test out our project?
Alex: fuck yeah, we're gonna kill it! Mrs. Wright won't know what hit her (maybe our project will hit her)
Me: here's to hoping we don't get suspended for hitting our teacher with a model rocket! Meet me at the park in an hour
Alex: you know I'm gonna aim the rocket at you and laugh so hard when you get a black eye!
See, I knew that my best friend Alex was kidding when he texted me shit like that...but at the same time, you never really knew about that boy. The life of a hyperactive 18 year old I guess.
Seeing as this project - to build a model rocket - was worth 40% of our physics grade, alex and I worked extremely hard on it. Ditched other classes to work on it, countless hours after school at each other's houses, and yes pulled a few all-nighters to accomplish it.
But you see, although alex is my best friend and has been since high school started, things got kinda weird on those all-nighters. Call me delirious if you will, but...I think he may have hinted towards something a few times.
10 days ago...
"Okay alex seriously focus! Futurama is on like every night, you can watch it another time, we've only got 10 days left to finish this thing!"
Alex looked over at me, eyes kinda glassy, he was clearly over tired. He slowly got up off his couch and walked over to me at the work desk.
"K fiiiine...but let me put in these screws, you suck at it"
I scoffed at his bluntness "sheesh, I love you too" i stood beside him with my arms crossed and watched him carefully.
"All I'm saying y/n is that I love you"
"Yeah okay alex, I'm pretty sure you just said that I suck at putting screws on and nothing else"
"Well it's cause I love you and I don't want you to hurt your tiny fingers!" He set the tools down and grabbed one of my hands...what the heck?? "Like come on, they're so cute. Just like your face!" He let go of my hand and was about to pick up our rocket again, before he fell back onto his couch and was fast asleep within seconds. Leaving me to ponder what the hell just happened in his basement.
------
I came back from my momentary flashback when I heard my phone buzz. I took it out of my hoodie pocket and read Alex's text:
Alex: I'll see you in 40 minutes from now! ;)
See, now that reminded me of out second all-nighter where once again he acted different...
4 days ago...
"Come on y/n! You know how to do all these calculations better than me! You can do it, just think"
This time alex was the one trying to keep me awake. That day was rough. After being waken up by a bird flying in through my window and having it attack me, I had a crappy day at school, and the day just seemed to drag on. But of course, alex and I had already promised that we were going to work on this tonight because it was due in 4 days.
I struggled to keep my eyes open as I sat at my kitchen table with alex. A couple dozen pieces of paper along with my physics textbook occupied the space in front of me, while alex sat beside me.
"Gosh I'm so tired. I feel like hell and I probably look like it too"
I looked over at alex to see if he had anything to add about my appearance...it wasn't until 2 hours ago that he informed me that I still had a twig stuck in my hair from that stupid bird. But he just stared at me, his eyebrows furrowed.
"You don't look anything like hell, y/n"
"Oh please alex you're just being a nice friend"
And that's when I swear I heard him mumble to himself "yeah but could be more than that". I swear I heard it. I looked at him, but he looked down, shuffled his chair a bit and said "shall we continue with those calculations then?"
------
Once I was done with my daydreams, I walked over to the park where we'd meet, model rocket in hand. Soon I reached my destination and saw my best friend there, just as he promised to be.
"Hey loser!" A friendly voice greeted me.
"What's up gaskarth? Ready to test this bitch out?" I set the rocket down and looked at him.
"Funny, jack said that about something completely unrelated to this the other day"
"Shut the fuck up and turn the damn thing on" I shoved him and gave him the controller.
"Okay, but once thing thing gets going and I can steer it, it's coming right at your face!"
I shook my head, prepared that in fact this rocket would not be meeting my face today.
Alex powered it up and it flew. There were a couple of things out project had to be capable of doing. First fly up straight, then fly in a circle without any bumps, and finally fly close to the ground then quickly pull up before hitting a tree or other object.
We tested the 3 components out a few times, alex was a jerk and pretended I was a tree that the rocket had to fly by, almost hitting me with it 4 times...
"Okay you've had your fun alex, I want my turn now!"
"Fine, just let me do the last thing again! Stand still!"
I stopped in my place and saw alex fly the rocket right at my ankles before he had to direct it upwards. Well, no good news for me.
BAM! That idiot actually hit my face!
"Fuck y/n are you alright?" He ran to my aid as I stood holding my jaw where the rocket striked me.
I'm not gonna lie, it did hurt. Probably cause it weighed quite a bit and it was going fast.
"Yeah but I'm gonna have a bruise tomorrow I just know it"
"God damn why do I hurt the people I love?!"
Woah there mr. dramatic.
"See there you go again alex!"
"What do you mean?" He looked at me attentively.
I leaned on the tree behind me for support, "It's like, you're more caring about me than usual lately. Not that it's a bad thing, but it's different. That one night you said you loved me and were protecting me from getting hurt..."
I saw his cheeks getting a little red but for some reason I couldn't stop talking "and then that other night when I looked like crap but you insisted that I didn't and I swear I heard you say something about being more than nice friends...and now this"
"Yeah I guess I'm not good at covering up feelings anymore"
"What do you mean by that alex?" I asked him even though I think I knew what he was saying. I just couldn't comprehend it until he explained himself.
"Well you know whenever either of us had a crush on somebody we'd tell each other and ask for advice? Well I can't tell you who I'm crushing on or ask for advice when I'd be asking the person who I'm crushing on! And I don't know I guess it just started showing and -"
"Alex I'm flattered, but..." I saw his face drop slightly, preparing for rejection.
"It's just that I, uh..."
"It's okay y/n I'll go home" he said throwing his hood over his head.
"Oh fuck it" I grabbed his hoodie and gave him a kiss. Sure we've given friendly kisses on the cheek before but this was on the lips, with passion. Im pretty sure he felt shocked.
"Wait what?" He said when we pulled apart "it sounded like you were rejecting me"
"Well I had this internal debate about dating friends and all the rules, but hey, those rules are dumb when I got you around"
His smile grew and so did mine. "So do you wanna go on an actual date sometime? Not our usual hangouts where we spit in fountain drinks?"
I laughed a little, "sure," I grabbed the rocket controller out of his hands "but only after I hit you with this bad boy now"
